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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27235366">You Don't Have to Be Alone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoShimmer/pseuds/EchoShimmer'>EchoShimmer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Wumptober 2020 [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Chronic Pain, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Of the "Omega without a pack" variety, Omega Jason Todd, Omega Tim Drake, Platonic Relationships, Protective Jason Todd, Secret Omega Tim, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Whumptober 2020, omega in heat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:09:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27235366</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoShimmer/pseuds/EchoShimmer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason discovers some new things about his little brother, and he finds himself taking care of him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tim Drake &amp; Jason Todd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Wumptober 2020 [15]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948924</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>699</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Gen Batfam ABO</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You Don't Have to Be Alone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one turned out tbh, but I wanted to get at least one Omegaverse AU in this month and this was the best day.</p>
<p>I know it's not everyone's favorite trope, but I happen to really like all the worldbuilding and angst you can do with it, so it will most likely pop up again at some point. I have a couple of ideas for series that are AOB that I might work on eventually, but for now this is it. I hope you enjoy :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Red Hood watched with satisfaction from the rooftop as Edward Nigma was led towards the GCPD transport vehicle in cuffs, pleased with the night's work. The past few days post Arkham breakout had been a mad scramble for all of Gotham’s vigilante’s. The Riddler, generally one of the more morally stable Rogues unless someone challenged him, was the one of the last ones on their list. Thank goodness, because the last few days had spread the Bats’ thin, even with the entire crew called in to split up the load.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Speaking of Hood’s allies, Jason turned towards his partner for the evening, eyeing the smaller boy with a bit of suspicion. Red Robin was oddly stiff and quiet compared to the last few times they had worked together. He wasn’t acting normally, even for him. Jason’s Omega and older brother instincts were on edge. Something was off with the kid. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> hoped that Timbo wasn’t hiding a serious injury or something considering neither of them was in the mood to drop by the cave tonight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You good Red?” he probed carefully, edging slightly closer to the smaller boy. The young Beta’s shoulders twitched ever so slightly towards his ears, and his head stayed pointedly facing the other direction. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Suspicious indeed</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” was Tim’s unconvincing reply, and before Jason could point out the falsehood there Tim was pushing up out of his crouched position and walking away from the edge, back towards the direction Jason knew his apartment was in. “Good team up, Hood. Nice seeing you, but I think going to head-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Red cut off with a hiss of pain, his knees suddenly giving out under him in the center of the rooftop. Jason had darted forward before he’d even dropped halfway, automatically easing the kid’s fall and gently lowering his head down as the small boy curled in on himself instinctively against the pain. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason hated when he was right.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shit Red,” Jason panicked, “Where are you hurt!” He quickly reached to yank off his infamous helmet so that he could get a better read on the situation. The scent filters were great for keeping out all the angry, distracting pheromones during a normal patrol, but when it came to first aid it was much better to be able to smell out what was going on. Even Tim’s muted Beta scent would be able to give a few clues on severity once his suit’s scent blockers had also been pulled off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So imagine Jason’s surprise when he took a full breath of dubiously-fresh Gotham air and instead got a lungful of stressed-pain-heat Omega, all mixed in intrinsically the scent that he knew was intrinsically Tim’s. Both of the vigilante’s froze, taken by surprise with the situation they now found themselves in. Jason breathed out slowly, determined to not let his next words sound like an accusation. He couldn’t let his brother try to brush this off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Red. I think there’s something you haven’t been telling me. When did you present?” There, Jason had managed to keep his tone gentle, letting the concern leak in to hide the bite from the accusation. Wonder of all wonders, Tim actually just gave in to the lost cause rather than try to fight it. He just curled up even tighter, hiding his face into his knees.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I presented last year,” Tim muttered, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that made a sickening amount of sense. Roughly a year ago would have been shortly after Tim disappeared on his one man quest to save Batman, when he had severed most of his connections with the other Bats. Jason didn’t honestly know that much about the whole situation that led to Tim’s new persona, but he knew that it was bad enough that Tim’s relationship with everyone except Jason and Cass was still shaky. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So Tim just… what, hadn’t told any of them the rather important detail that he had presented as an Omega? That did seem like the sort of move an idiot-genius like Tim would pull, now that Jason thought about it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No one else knows,” Jason surmises, not even needing the tiny nod of confirmation. “Why the hell were you even out tonight? You must have known you were in pre-heat.” And oh look, now Tim was embarrassed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought I had more time,” he mumbled, not meeting Jason’s eyes as he carefully pushed himself up into a sitting position, still wincing slightly. “I miscalculated.” The last part was said so adorably grumpily that Jason just decided to leave him alone on the questioning for a bit. There were bigger problems at the moment, like getting Tim somewhere safe before they started attracting every ill-meaning Alpha in the area.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, we can’t just stay here all night Baby B. Where should I drop you off then? I assume you don’t want to go to the Manor for the week.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No!” Tim said quickly, scent spiking with mild panic that seemed a bit extreme for the situation. Not that Jason could really talk considering he would have basically had the same reaction in this situation. “Just let me slap on some fresh scent blockers and give me a lift to my apartment, I’ll be fine there.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason ran Tim’s words over in his mind for a moment, unexplainably hesitant, but it’s not like he had any other ideas here that wouldn’t make the kid mad at him. So he gave in, standing and pulling the kid up after him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The ride to Tim’s apartment was mostly silent, with Tim gripping his brother’s jacket tightly as the older Omega (and wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> weird, to think that he wasn’t the only Omega in the family anymore) maneuvered his bike across the streets and into Red’s hidden bunker below the apartment. Tim didn’t say anything against Jason’s presence once they arrived, so Jason just took that as permission to stay as they both pulled off armor and moved upstairs into the main living space. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason gently cajoled Tim towards his room, surprised when the boy actually listened, before making a quick foray into the kitchen to make the smaller boy a quick snack and to grab some pain meds and water. If he was going to go through all the effort of getting Tim here, he might as well finish the job so that the little niggling Omega instinct that urged him to ensure the safety of his closest pack member would be eased. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tim’s pantry was horrendously bare of anything resembling actual food, but Jason managed to get some suitable snacks for now. He had a sneaking suspicion he’d be doing a grocery run sometime soon to make sure the kid didn’t starve. Tim barely took care of himself properly on a normal day, and if he was going to be apartment-bound for a whole week while no one knew he was in heat… Jason would have to check in himself. Assuming Tim didn’t kick him out, he supposed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So Jason accepted his inevitable role as temporary caretaker, bringing Tim the food and plopping down in a chair beside the kids bed, not wanting to disturb the intentional chaos of fabrics and pillows that was the nest Tim had already managed to rig up on the large mattress. Tim ate everything Jason brought with a happy little hum that should not have pleased Jason as much as it did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then Jason tried to give Tim the pain meds, definitely having noticed the masked winces and tension in his shoulders alongside the stressed tint to his scent, and things spiraled further.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t bother,” Tim mumbled, turning his face into his pillow, “No pain meds are going to help, I just have to wait it out like always.” And didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> raise all sorts of alarm bells.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The cramps are bad enough that a basic pain medication doesn’t help?” Jason knew firsthand how much heats sucked, don’t get him wrong. But ibuprofen always took the edge off for him, and he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> as bad off as Tim seemed to be already.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tim’s face was still buried into the mattress, curling away from Jason, but he was still able to just make out Tim’s reluctant response. “Not cramps. Different sort of pain.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And suddenly Jason was mentally traveling back in time, to the hazy days when he was first with the League of Assassins, just after he presented. The memories of that time were fractured by brain damage and, later, Lazarus rage, but Jason did remember bits and pieces of his early heats, snarling and lashing out instinctively at every Alpha that got close until they stopped trying. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>More importantly, he could remember that heavy, painful feeling of loneliness, of rejection. It was a reaction to not having any solid pack bonds, he later learned. The mental and physical effects of being a packless and generally overstressed Omega are exacerbated by the heat, a physical distress reaction designed to try and draw attention and fill the void. It had faded for Jason once he got out, once he started hanging out with Roy and Kori and even started to hesitantly reach out to the Bats. The mental strain of being packless had faded quickly as his life found some sort of stability again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And now there was Tim, whom no one knew was an Omega. Beta’s still generally did much better in a stable pack structure of some sort, but they could function just fine on their own. The Bat’s didn’t even think to question whether the extent of Tim’s...  </span>
  <em>
    <span>withdrawal </span>
  </em>
  <span>from the family would be hurting him. Even if they did know, they probably assumed his friendship with the Titans would be enough. With the new information Jason was rapidly collecting, it was clear that it wasn’t. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tim was spiraling on his own, and no one even knew. Just the thought of it was mildly horrifying to the older Omega.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Without even taking the time to fully process what he was doing, Jason was getting up from his chair and plopping down on the bed-nest next to his little brother, reaching out a long arm to tug the startled boy against him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you doing?” Tim mumbled, brow furrowed slightly in confusion despite the fact that he was clearly now seconds away from falling asleep. The kid’s voice may have been slightly annoyed at the intrusion, but the shift in his scent and the loosening of his muscles as he curled even closer towards Jason confirmed for the older boy that this had been the right call.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Helping,” was all Jason said. “Just take a nap, Timbers. We can talk more about all of this once you’re awake and at least a bit more conscious, okay?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was no response beyond a faint sound that could have been a purr, and then Tim was asleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason had followed him into a doze just a short time later, soothed by the warm weight of his peacefully slumbering little brother.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Alright, we're really close to the end now! I'm hopeful that I can get one last prompt done to post Thursday or Friday, but if not then the last Wumptober post of 2020 will be on the 31st. </p>
<p>Now to go sort through all of the comments I've gotten over the past few days while I was super busy with school... heh y'all are awesome. Until next time &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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